Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/192

178 Tempt no more! I may not follow,

Like the swallow,

Gayly on the track of Spring.

Bounden by an iron fate,

I must wait,

Dream and wonder, yearn and sing.

, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies

Behold the Spirit of the musky South,

A Creole with still-burning, languid eyes,

Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:

Swathed in spun gauze is she,

From fibres of her own anana tree.

Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,

By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:

'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,

Like to the golden oriole s hanging nest,

Her airy hammock swings,

And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.

How beautiful she is! A tulip-wreath

Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:

Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,

Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,

While movelessly she lies

With lithe, lax, folded hands and heavy eyes.